The Shard
by lunaflore
Summary: Many movie watchers were left wondering where Elsa got her powers from. This piece fictionally explains that, as well as serves as a kind of prequel to the movie.
1. Chapter 1

_The fanfic is inspired by both Frozen and the original Snow Queen, Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale._

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><p>Once, in a distant land, a place far, far up north, peaks and plains were populated by unearthly creatures. These creatures were huge and mighty. Their bodies were covered in hair from head to toe. They lived for a long time – sometimes centuries in human years. The creatures had unique magic powers. They could conjure visions in the air. They could influence weather conditions. And even heal themselves by the use of magic. They could do all that and more. These creatures were trolls. Trolls were nocturnal beings who spent most of their time in mountain caves, lonesome dales and extensive woodlands. Trolls weren't adjusted to life in the sun. When exposed to direct sunlight, they turned into stone. They wanted to protect themselves from it.<p>

One time, trolls decided to try using their magic for a purpose that was entirely new. They thought of extracting the magic essences of the four weather seasons and then utilizing them for their own aims. With a lot of effort and dedication, the trolls managed to capture the life force at the core of each time of year.

They took something different from each. From spring, they collected warmth and daylight that brought rejuvenation and rebirth. From summer, they took the sweltering heat that came with the balmiest months of the year. From fall, they took wind breezes and rain showers. And from winter – ice, snow, and the chilling cold.

Trolls knew that they would have to use this magic wisely. They knew that drawing on magic in excess would create an imbalance in nature's forces. Consequently, when not exercised, the essences were kept enclosed. Four regular objects, specifically enchanted for the purpose, served as their vessels. An aspen wood coffer was used to contain the power of springtime. A clay pot was where summer's spirit was kept. Fall's winds were encased in a horn. And finally, a mirror was used for winter's frozen heart.

Each object was entrusted to a specific troll for protection. But one of the guarding trolls, the troll who had been given the mirror, was a rebellious and evil being. So the wicked troll started using the magic contained within the mirror to bring about havoc and malevolence. Little did he know that it wouldn't last. The other trolls soon made the discovery of his actions. They learned that the magic mirror and the power it held were being abused. Naturally, the good trolls wanted to stop the evil troll from going any further. They gathered together and fought him. The rebel troll used winter's magic to fight back. Then finally, one troll was unable to stand against all others. He was overpowered.

In the heat of the concluding battle, the enchanted mirror was shattered. It fell against a rock and broke into hundreds of pieces. The essence of winter could no longer be used. Most of the shards from the broken mirror became buried in the soil. Buried high in the mountains, never to be found by anyone. The rebel troll was distraught over his failed plans and lost power. He soon died, miserable and lonely.

Not long after, the first humans came to live in the northerly land. Trolls were ill-disposed to foreigners and hid from them. To people, they appeared as huge ancient rocks, standing along the edges of serpentine roads that cut across the mountains. Time went by, and the people population grew. Trolls, on the other hand, started to die out. They couldn't accustom to the new conditions. They weren't as strong as before. Before long, so few trolls were left that humans began considering them to be nothing more than folktales.


	2. Chapter 2

Came a time when a kingdom thrived in the south of the land. It lay near the sea, next to a fjord. Away from the high altitudes and snowy mount tops. The kingdom's name was Aredelle. It meant The Valley of Eagles in the tongue spoken in the region. Eventually, the kingdom came to be ruled by a royal couple – King Agdar and Queen Idun. They were good leaders; beloved and revered by the citizens. Not long after they came to power, the king announced that the queen was expecting their first child. A future head of state was to come into the world. Their fellow countrymen celebrated the happy news.

During one evening in winter, the pregnant queen decided to take a walk through the Arendelle village. Palace guards, who guaranteed safety to the royal couple, escorted her on her stroll. While walking the narrow streets, the queen found herself in a wonderment of the calm and loveliness that surrounded her. She watched the snowflakes whirl in the air, then land on the cobbled walkways and slanting rooftops. But what she didn't know was that very soon the calm and quiet would be over.

Because a few hours ago, a snowstorm had started in the mountains. Winds came together and flew at a huge speed. The swirling winds raked the snow. They picked up a shard that had been lying in the snow for ages. A shard that used to be a part of the enchanted mirror. The winds carried the shard all the way to the fjord and the village of Arendelle. When they reached, the shard flew right into the eye of the Queen Idun.

'Oh,' exclaimed the queen, as she stopped, startled.

The guards rushed to her.

'Your majesty! Is everything good?' The main guard asked.

'Yes, it's only that…' She rubbed her eye with her hand, and then said: 'Something fell into my eye.'

She then looked around. The snowflakes weren't calmly falling from the sky any longer. They were spiraling and wheeling. The wind was strong and howling.

'I would like you to take me back to the castle now,' she told the guards. 'It looks like a storm is about to begin.'

When back in the castle, the queen took off her winter coat and boots, and walked into the bedroom. There she looked into her eye in front of the mirror. But she didn't see anything in it. The queen assumed that whatever had fallen into her eye was by then gone. The eye still itched for a bit after that. But soon the queen forgot about it.


	3. Chapter 3

After a few months Queen Idun gave birth to her child.

The newborn was a beautiful baby girl. She had luminous blue eyes. Her hair was pale blond. And her skin was fair and delicate like silk. She was supposed to be given the name Elisabeth, for it was the queen's favorite name. But, immediately after she was born, everyone simply called her Elsa. Even the queen never called her by the name that she had intended to give her. For she was Elsa and nothing else. Little Elsa appeared to be a perfectly normal, healthy child. When her parents looked at her, they happily imagined that one day their little girl will be the ruler of their small, but influential kingdom.

But one night, when Elsa was still very little, something completely out of the normal happened. The king and queen were in their bed. Elsa was in her cradle, which stood by the window. The time was late at night. Everyone in the castle was asleep. But then suddenly the queen was awakened by a sensation of an odd coldness. She opened her eyes and felt the chill creep underneath her nightdress. Simultaneously, she could hear the baby crying.

The queen got out of bed. She was thinking that she must have left the window open. And that the cold brought by the nighttime hours was disturbing the infant. But as soon as she was on her feet, the queen could see that the window was closed. Perplexed, she went up to the cradle. What she saw left her stunned. Little Elsa was crying and wriggling. But that wasn't all. Frost was coming straight out of her. Queen Idun gasped and yanked her hand to her chest. For a moment's time, she stood petrified, unable to make a move. She couldn't believe in what she was seeing.

Then she turned around and sprang back to the bed. There, she shook her husband until he was awake, too.

'Agdar, you need to see this,' the queen said in an unsteady voice, just as he opened his eyes. 'Come here this instant!'

King Agdar heard the urgency in her voice. He got up, and they walked to the cradle together. The king saw what the queen had seen. That Elsa was moving her tiny hands and feet and making ice shoot out of them.

'Look at what's happening! We need to do something!' The queen cried.

King Agdar looked at Elsa, who was still crying. Then King Agdar took her out of the cradle and lulled her. Soon, she stopped crying. And with that frost stopped appearing. But it wasn't enough to make the queen any calmer. She remained high-strung.

'What could it be?' She asked. 'Is the girl sick? Cursed? A changeling?' She whispered, all while looking at her daughter with big round eyes, as if seeing her for the first time.

The king turned to his wife.

'It could be magic,' he said. 'Troll magic.'

'_Magic?_' The queen repeated. _'Trolls?_' She pronounced the words like she had never heard them before. 'But, Adgar, those are just legends. Everybody knows that. Tales told by people who have nothing better to do. Trolls aren't real. Neither is magic.'

'But there are those who claim it's real,' he said. 'I once read accounts of troll magic in an old book that came across it in the castle's library. And what's happening here, what's happening to Elsa is, according to what was written in that book, exactly the kind of magic that trolls could do.'

The queen was still looking at him with unguarded skepticism.

'Can I see that book?' She asked.

'Come, I'll show you,' the king answered.

The king then looked at Elsa. He was sure that she had nowstopped crying. He carefully put her back in the cradle.

And so the king and queen dashed to the library. In the middle of the night the castle halls through which they ran were huge and eerily empty. They reached the library room and searched through the towering shelves. They browsed until the right book landed in their hands. The queen could see that the book was indeed an old one. It had tattered covers and pages yellowed by the passing of time. It was written in archaic runes. When King Agdar and Queen Idun were ruling the country, people were already using letters to write. However, the old runes were still studied and understood.

The king opened the book and held a candle up to the timeworn pages. He started reading from them. The queen listened carefully. The writing described trolls as observed by humans. It claimed that trolls were beings who lived high in the mountains, way up north, away from ordinary people's reach. Nevertheless, rare travelers who had gone that far had left notes on what they had seen. They had witnessed troll magic. The travelers had seen that trolls could manipulate weather conditions with this magic. They could harness the power of different seasons, winter included. They could make snow and ice appear as they wished.

'It sounded completely unbelievable when you said it,' the queen whispered. 'But it looks like you were right. It appears that Elsa can do the same. That Elsa has the same… magic.'

That's when the royal couple discovered that their newborn daughter wasn't like other people. And that trolls and magic, even though spoken of as a myth, were apparently as real anything commonplace. But still, they didn't know how she had got the powers. Elsa was human, not a troll.

'How do you think it could have happened, Agdar?' The queen asked, looking at her husband in the flickering light cast by the candle. 'How did she get these powers?'

'That I don't know. But I have some guesses,' the king said.

'Like what?'

'Like, what if a troll cursed the royal family? Because it's humans who are ruling now, while trolls have gone into hiding. So they wanted revenge.'

'But… why would they want to curse someone by giving them superhuman powers? That doesn't make much sense,' the queen objected.

'You're right. It doesn't,' the king agreed.

Following that the king thought of something else. 'Maybe, centuries in the past, a human had bred with a troll. And now troll genes have resurfaced and a human child had inherited rare troll powers.'

'I don't think that's likely, either,' the queen said. 'What if…' she started. 'What if Elsa is indeed a troll child, not human? A changeling has indeed happened. After all, nobody knows how trolls actually look like. What if they look like humans when they are first born?'

'No you know that's not a possibility. Elsa is ours,' the king said.

'Yes, you're right. Elsa is ours. She's our flesh and blood,' the queen said quietly.

They considered more theories. But not one fitted. So it happened that the queen never connected Elsa's powers with the shard that had fallen into her eye on that evening when she was out in the village. The book didn't reference any mirrors that were enchanted and then shattered. No person had ever found out about that. And even if they would have, it would have led to nothing. Queen Idun wouldn't have imagined that the thing that had fallen into her eye was a charmed mirror's shard. A shard that bestowed the child whom she was carrying with its magic.

And so that was how Elsa's parents discovered that she had extraordinary powers. Even if they didn't know why. But they knew that she was special. She had a rare, inexplicable gift that had to be nurtured, protected, and taught to be used correctly.


End file.
